GMO labeling defeated, Berkeley mayor loses two

The huge influx of corporate cash and a deceptive ad blitz convinced California voters to go against their own interests and defeat Proposition 37, which would’ve required the labeling of food derived from genetically modified organisms.

The gutted news media failed to report on the true scale of deception involved in the campaign, and the source of the paychecks for all those “experts” who appeared in the corporate-sponsored ad blitz. The corporateers won, and handily.

Here in Berkeley, neoliberal Mayor Tom Bates, who rolls over the instant he hears a corporateer’s or a real estate developer’s wallet open, win reelection, but two of his pet measures didn’t.

One, Measure S, was designed to “cleanse” the streets of the homeless, the victims of neoliberalism, by barring them from sitting or lying on the city’s sidewalks. Measure S was defeated by a narrow margin, losing by 1,055 of a total of 33,767 votes cast.

The mayor’s second major proposal, Measure T, would have gutted a citizen-crafted plan for the city’s shoreline region, allowing high-rise development in hopes of attracting “synthetic biology” and other corporate startups spawned by would-be billionaire scientists from the university up the hill.

The measure went down to defeat by 123 votes of a total of 31,611 votes cast.

For complete results from local races, see the Alameda County Registrar of Voters web page and click on “open all categories.”